Come On Babe, Why Don't We Paint The Town...

Just so you guys don't hear any wild rumors, I auditioned for Chicago earlier this week. Explanation: every semester there is a musical on campus for students, and next spring the musical is going to be everyone's favorite musical about 1920s murderesses and flapper girls. It's really a great show and it just so happens that there's a small role of a girl who only speaks Hungarian. The fact that she gets to be in one of the best songs in the show and it's a small enough role that a physics major can manage it didn't hurt either!

So Monday evening I went to tryouts with the song 42nd Street prepared (and by prepared I mean I sang it a few times to myself over the weekend sitting in my room and got a suitemate to listen a minute before I headed over). The hall was teeming with theatre people who are not quite like the average student from these parts: they're all rather loud and interesting, I'd say, and a lot of them were borderline annoying because they liked to be overly dramatic. (Go figure.) I think what annoyed me most was how every girl in the place was auditioning for either Roxie or Velma, the two leads, meaning perhaps 20 girls auditioning for those parts. My mathematical skills indicated that perhaps a few of them should try for secondary roles but I suppose you can't tell that to a drama queen... Oh, and they all were saying "ohmigawd I'm so nervous!" like they suddenly weren't going to be for the actual production.

When I go into the audition room the auditioning board (ie perhaps 7 students) immediately noticed off my form that I speak fluent Hungarian. "Have we got the part for you!" they gushed, and I sang my little song and I think it went alright.

Then they handed me a typed sheet that they'd copied monologues from various roles, including the Hungarian part. I started reading it aloud but stopped a few words in, saying "wait, this is formatted wrong!" Everyone laughed really hard, and the one guy said I get 30 extra points for that comment alone. (Yay!) I got to read from the actual script instead, but unfortunately stumble a little because it's Hungarian and I'm not that good at it. Hopefully they understood that was the problem.

After I finished they asked a few clarifying questions (dance experience, if my email was properly written), so I left the room grinning a bit since I thought it went well. It left all the nerve-wracked theatre kids wondering what on Earth I'm so happy about because you're not supposed to be happy after an audition dammit!

So that's where things stand right now. They said that the callback list will come out Wednesday (as in, in the next few hours) so with luck I'll be very excited soon, and callbacks themselves will be Saturday. Even if I don't get it, though, it was definitely fun to delve into this world I haven't touched since doing musicals in high school and I'm glad I tried it!